International Board of Trustees

Accountability for our operations is maintained by our International Board of Trustees, working to the highest standards of transparency and integrity in governance, and drawing on the expertise of its members. The International Board approves the annual report and accounts of ARTICLE 19, in which are detailed all our major donors and regional projects. Go to our Annual reports page to find out more.

Bob Latham, Chairman

USA [ appointed June 2018]

Bob Latham, Chairman

Robert P. “Bob” Latham has had a distinguished career spanning four decades as a trial lawyer with recognized expertise in the areas of media law and intellectual property litigation. He is currently a Partner and Chair of Jackson Walker L.L.P.’s media law practice group, and his trial practice also involves complex commercial disputes, international, and class actions. He is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of Virginia Law School. He has been inducted as a fellow in the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers.

In addition to his practice at Jackson Walker, Bob is the Chair of the International Board of ARTICLE 19 and for ten years was on the Governing Committee of the American Bar Association Forum on Communications Law. He is also a former president of the Defense Counsel Section of the Media Law Resource Center.

Bob has served on the Executive Committee of World Rugby for thirteen years, and chairs the World Rugby Regulations Committee. He is a former Chairman of the Board of USA Rugby and an inductee in the U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame. Bob is also a published author and columnist, and a much sought-after speaker nationally and internationally. He has spoken on matters related to the rights of free speech, technology and intellectual property litigation, advocacy and litigation strategy, dispute resolution and sports – from Antwerp to Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro to Glasgow, and Melbourne to Yangzhou.

Bob also sits on the Major Gifts Committee of the International Board

Dr. Rasha Abdulla

EGYPT [appointed 2024]

Dr. Rasha Abdulla

Dr. Rasha Abdulla is a tenured Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at The American University in Cairo (AUC). Dr. Abdulla has a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, and has taught and guest lectured at several universities in Europe and the United States.

Dr. Abdulla is an award-winning researcher. Her research interests include online communication; social media and political participation; media in transition; media across cultures; media diversity; media uses and effects; public service television; and freedom of expression. She is the author of “The Internet in the Arab World: Egypt and Beyond” [Peter Lang, Inc], and several other manuscripts and monographs. She is widely published in top-tier international academic journals, and as a contributor of book chapters and reports by major publishers and organizations.

Dr. Abdulla is an international consultant, providing research consultancies and training to a list of national and international clients, including UNESCO; UNICEF; the World Economic Forum; the Carnegie Foundation; IREX; Internews; the Open Society Foundations; the Anna Lindh Foundation; Panos Institute Paris; Cospe International; Media Diversity Institute; the African Journalists’ Union; and others.

In addition to her seat on the International Board of Article 19, Dr. Abdulla is a member of the board of Global Voices, and the MENA board of Article 19. She is also a former member of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum, a group of experts appointed by the Secretary General of the United Nations.

Dr. Abdulla is an occasional op-ed writer, and appears frequently on national and international media interviews. She tweets about various issues in English and in Arabic at @RashaAbdulla.

Gayathry Venkiteswaran, Vice Chair

Malaysia [appointed June 2016]

Gayathry Venkiteswaran, Vice Chair

Gayathry Venkiteswaran is a journalist and activist and sits on the Governance committee of the International Board of ARTICLE 19. She is a lecturer at the University of Nottingham Malaysia, where she is also a PhD candidate with the focus of her research on media reforms in Southeast Asia. Prior to this, she was the executive director of the Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance, working on press freedom and access to information in the region. Before joining SEAPA, she headed a Malaysian press freedom organisation, the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), worked as a journalist and taught media history and journalism in a number of private colleges and universities. She was curator of the freedom of expression content on Asia and the Pacific for the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) based in Toronto, and is co-editing a book on the media in transition in Burma with two other editors, scheduled for publication in 2019.

Gayathry has authored a research paper for the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) on Freedom of assembly and association online in India, Malaysia and Pakistan: Trends, Challenges and Recommendations (2016), and has presented extensively in international fora on issues related to media freedom and freedom of expression in Southeast Asia. She has an MA (International Relations) from the Australian National University and a Bachelor of Mass Communication from University Sains Malaysia.

Gayathry Chairs the Governance Committee of the International Board

David Kaye

USA [appointed June 2020]

David Kaye

David Kaye teaches law at the University of California, Irvine. From 2014 – 2020 he served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. He is also the author of Speech Police: The Global Struggle to Govern the Internet (2019). Since October 2020 he has been serving as the Independent Chair of the Board of the Global Network Initiative. He has also written for international and American law journals and numerous media outlets. David began his legal career with the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a former member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law.

Lucia Nader

Brazil [Appointed 2022]

Lucia Nader

Lucia Nader is a political scientist with expertise in the field of democracy, social change, and human rights.

A seasoned consultant and facilitator and the author of several articles on social entrepreneurship, she has been researching and working with activists, NGOs and donors for more than 25 years. She is former Executive Director of the Brazil-based organisation Conectas Human Rights, and led on its Foreign Policy and Human Rights Program, with a focus on south-south relations.

Recently she has focused on strengthening institutional processes, and fostering individual and collective care and protection within organisations. She facilitates team-building, governance and strategic planning, as well as collaborative research initiatives. Her current PhD research at the Institute for Development Studies – University of Sussex focuses on regenerative activism, looking at the benefits of renewal, restoration and revitalisation at individual, organisational and movement levels.

Lucia was a visiting scholar at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice – CHGRJ (New York University) and at the Institute for Latin American Studies – ILAS (Columbia University) in 2017 and 2018. From 2015 and 2016, she was a fellow with the Open Society Foundations Fellowship Program investigating ‘Solid Organizations in a Liquid World’.

She holds a postgraduate degree from Sciences-Po (Paris, France) and a Bachelor’s degree in international relations from the Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP). Ashoka, an organisation supporting entrepreneurs and organisations that provide solutions to social problems, recognised her work in 2009. Lucia is fluent in Portuguese, French, English and Spanish.

Aparna Ravi

India (Appointed in June 2020]

Aparna Ravi

Aparna Ravi is a corporate and finance lawyer with nearly two decades of experience, having practiced law in New York, London and India. She is currently based in New Delhi, where she is a Partner at Samvad Partners Advocates, a pan-Indian, full-service law firm. In addition to representing clients in financing, mergers and acquisitions, and investment transactions, Aparna regularly advices a number of corporate clients on corporate governance issues as well on compliance and advisory matters, including implementing policies to make working places safer.

Aparna has also worked with a legal not-for-profit organization in Bangalore, India where she was involved in research and litigation on women’s rights and the right to education, and has been a visiting faculty at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Aparna was a member of the Bankruptcy Law Reform Committee constituted by the Indian Government that prepared the initial draft of the new legislation and continues to research and write widely on insolvency law reform in India.

Aparna also has a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from New York University School of Law (2003) and a Bachelor degree in Government from Harvard University (2000). She is qualified to practice law in India and in New York.

Mark Salway

UK [appointed June 2018]

Mark Salway

Mark is Director of Sustainable Finance at Cass Business School, City, University of London. He is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and holds their postgraduate diploma in charity accounting. He has been responsible for the business school’s work on developing financial sustainability in charities, and has led the social investment and social finance work for the past four years. He also leads the ICAEW accredited MSc module on Advanced, Audit, Accounting and Taxation.

Mark has extensive experience as management consultant for industry, government and with many non-profit organisations – from the UN and CARE International, to Age UK and the Children’s Society – as well as many commercial organisations such as Virgin Airlines, and WS Atkins. He has also advised government at the Department of Work and Pension and Department of Education and Skills.

He was Director for Finance and Operational Support for CARE International UK from 2007-2014, (and Joint Acting CEO in 2014). During the earlier part of his career Mark worked for KMPG from 1996-2004 in consulting and audit, where he was also part of the Charity Management Team.

He is passionate about giving people tools to help themselves and developing a voice for civil society, and helped to establish www.lendwithcare.org.uk, the peer to peer lending platform.

Mark sits on the Finance and General Purposes Committee for the International Board.

David Viney

UK {appointed December 2020]

David Viney

David Viney is a digital technologist with more than 25 years’ leadership experience across the public, private and third sectors, including six years building a digital consulting business.

He is currently Director of Platforms at WPP – the world’s largest Marketing business – having previously undertaken similar roles at BSI, Arup and the BBC; where he delivered business systems across news, television and radio.

David is professionally qualified in both IT and Finance, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Passionate about international development and human rights, he has served on the Finance Committee and main Boards of both SciDev, a global news media NGO, and Privacy International (‘PI’).

Whilst David was at PI, the board oversaw a complete overhaul of the vision, strategy and branding of the organisation, to maintain relevance in the post-Snowden era; addressing not only fundamental privacy rights, but also emerging concerns such as data exploitation by large corporates and the protection of democracy from malign actors.

David joined the ARTICLE 19 board in December 2020.

Lesley Swarbrick

UK [appointed June 2019]

Lesley Swarbrick

Lesley Swarbrick was appointed HR director of TI Media, formerly Time Inc. UK, in August 2014. In her nearly four years with the company, she was instrumental in the transformation of the business, leading a range of leadership and communication initiatives – including the work around the company’s strategic narrative. Prior to joining Time Inc. UK, Lesley had a long and distinguished career in HR at the BBC spanning two decades. In addition, she ran a successful HR consultancy business, where her clients included the Financial Conduct Authority, Amnesty International and Fox International.

As HR Director BBC Vision, Lesley reported to the Executive Director and was responsible for supporting the Executive Directors of BBC Vision and BBC MC&A in developing, integrating and implementing the People Strategy to achieve the broader business objectives of the organisation.

Lesley is a former journalist with a strong interest in human rights and freedom of expression issues.

Javier Garza Ramos

Mexico [appointed January 2022]

Javier Garza Ramos

Javier Garza Ramos is a journalist based in Torreón (northern Mexico) where he founded and heads EnRe2Laguna, a local news platform on radio and social media. He also co-hosts Expansión Daily, one of the most popular news podcasts in México.

For the past 15 years, he has also worked in journalist protection and press freedom issues. As editorial director of El Siglo de Torreón, he led a newsroom that came under fire from drug cartels operating in his city, and developed safety protocols that are now used by newsrooms in several countries.

He is a contributor in El País and The Washington Post and writes about journalism in Latin America for Harvard University’s Nieman Reports.. Garza was also a Knight Fellow at the International Center for Journalists focusing on digital security. Formerly a chair of Article19’s Mexico and Central America affiliate, he is also on the board of the World Editors Forum, and has given conferences and workshops on press freedom, media development and journalist safety in several countries.

He has a Bachelor’s degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and a Master of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin.

In 2022 he received a Special Citation of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for journalism in the Americas given by Columbia University.